Page 91 of Under the Waves
“Sure,” I shrugged, a loopy smile hanging on my lips which was only there because of him.
Stupid Jakson Calloway and his stupid sunshineness.
“Well, even if you said no, you’re still my friend Poppy. You’re one of the three best people I know.”
“Who’s first?” I asked, cautiously.
Jakson glanced at me then, face completely devoid of his usual devilish humor as he said, “My wife.”
My lips loosened just as my eyes widened to the size of golf balls.
“You should’ve seen the look on your face, I’m dead! Actually dead, Pops! Call the nurses my poor, little heart can’t take this torment,” Jakson snickered, the sound full of happiness like a little kid at Christmas. “Oh, you are too easy to tease, little Pops.”
I rolled my eyes, huffing as I wrapped my arms around my waist. “I’ll leave in a minute and then you can laugh yourself to death alone,” I countered, just as serious even though it was taking everything inside me not to laugh.
“Nooooo,” Jakson whined whilst looking down at me with these big puppy dog eyes and the cutest little pout of his lips.So that was where Lia’s siblings got it from,I thought. “You can’t leave, little Pops. You’ll break my heart, and Jasper’s too. You know you’re his everything, right? That boy would die for you. No questions asked.”
My heart cleaved in two at his words, aching to the beat of them. No matter how many times I tried to convince myself it was the medication talking, there was this tiny hint of truth to his words that I couldn’t get out of my head.
“You’re a good friend to him,” I whispered after a moment. “To Jasper, and to Lia. More than they give you credit for.”
Jakson’s pouty smile disappeared, replaced by a hollow, empty look. Gone was everything that made him sohim.It waslike looking at a ghost weighed down by the weight of its scars. Wires and IVs lined his arms, coated in cotton white bandages that were a muddied red around the edges. The disinfectant clean scent of the hospital ward crept into the room. Small beeps of the ECG shattering the second of silence.
In a fraction of a second, as swift as a click of a finger, that golden grin reappeared on his lips like it had never left in the first place. I’d put money on the fact that I had just become one of the very few people in the entire world who had witnessed the small slip in his mask, the breakage of the facade he had kept alive for so long now.
“They’re like family to me, little Pops. I’d do anything for them.”
“But that doesn’t mean you have to sacrifice yourself in the process,” I whispered, barely. The weight of my words slowly dawned on me, the reality of what I just said sinking into my very bones.
“I could say the same thing to you,” he winked but there was no humor, no light behind his eyes.
“Yeah…I guess you could.” I sighed. “I know it’s not my place but I’m…worried about you, Jakson.”
His smile didn’t falter. “I’ll be okay, Pops. You know I will. All these wires and machines will be gone by next week.”
“That’s not what I was talking about.”
Nowthatdid make him pause.
“I’ll be okay,” he repeated, but this time, it seemed like he was trying to convincehimselfmore than he was trying to convince me.
“That’s the thing though, Jakson. You don’t always have to be.”
“Your wrong. I do. I have to be because, if I’m not, then who else will be? You’ve been around long enough to see our group, Pops. It doesn’t take a genius to see all the sadness surrounding us all. One of us has to be the light the others can follow,” he whispered, almost hazily like he was in some sort of trance. “and that just happens to be me.”
“Well, I’m here,” I replied, “for when you don’t want to bejustokay anymore.” I smiled softly, a small grin playing on my lips. “Even Jedi’s need breaks from saving the galaxy from time to time.”
I knew, deep down, it wasn’t the world as I knew it that he was trying to save.
It washisworld, his Blue.
Jakson chuckled, color returning to his cheeks, light reigniting in his eyes. “You’re one hell of a woman, Poppy Wells. Jasper’s a lucky guy.”
“I think I’m the lucky one here,” I laughed, fingers itching to peel off the scabs trickling down the back of my neck.
“You owe yourself more credit, Pops. There’s a strong, confident genius somewhere inside that head of yours just waiting to escape.”
I hummed. “That’s rather a poetic way to put it.”